Wildwood

Both the present and the absent males in Lola’s life are weak, troubled, or dangerous. Lola’s father left them, and the only redeeming quality he seems to have is how much he enjoyed her mother’s large bosom. Lola is critical of men, exhibiting a general distrust that grows as she is betrayed or mistreated. Even Oscar, whom she cares for deeply, receives her criticism when he exposes Lola’s plan to run away and gets her caught. Lola offers only a couple of glimpses of her tio, or uncle, Rudolfo, who is a heroin addict. He shows up to help recapture Lola and bring her home. Aldo, Lola’s white boyfriend, and his elderly father are not upstanding. After living with them in their house in Wildwood, she discovers Aldo is racist and has no genuine feelings for her. She also describes how men would approach her while she worked at the boardwalk, one of whom tells her she should wear a bikini, to which she asks if he wants to rape her. She exhibits a clear distrust, if not an open hostility, toward men.

Beyond facing an objectification commonly felt by women, the dynamic between her and Aldo or these strangers implicitly occurs due to her identity as a woman of color. Aldo choosing to make racist comments at her expense while pressuring her to have sex with him indicates that he specifically disrespects her because of her gender and race. This intersectional prejudice directed at Black women is sometimes referred to as misogynoir, a term coined in 2008. Race plays a large influence because Lola carries her mother’s physical features, aside from her breasts. Her largely Puerto Rican neighborhood discriminates against her due to her darker skin tone, as colorism caused separation in the community. Lola recalls how “[t]he Puerto Rican kids on the block couldn’t stop laughing when they saw my hair […] and the morenos, they didn’t know what to say” (Paragraph 8). This indicates how Lola is made to feel ashamed of both her gender and her race in every place she goes, when combined with the sexism she experiences both from men and from her mother.

To intensify her isolation, she often feels that her culture isn’t a sanctuary from harm and neglect. Dominican culture is a constant influence, and Diaz provides strong details that knit Lola’s story into broader cultural expectations. She already indicates that her mother’s mistreatment isn’t entirely abnormal because she is an “Old World” Dominican, or someone representing tradition. People witness Belicia hitting her kids and say nothing. No attempt is made to seek out Lola when she runs away, which Lola remarks is unsurprising because Dominicans don’t value their children like white people. As a child, Lola confronts her mother about being expected to do so much housework and care for her younger brother, which Belicia dismisses: “You’re my [daughter], she said, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing” (Paragraph 12). This example of internalized sexism directed at Lola gives her the impression that she won’t find comfort in her culture, as she’ll still be held to an unfair expectation based on her identity. Her mother, meanwhile, openly adheres to the culture she left behind in Santo Domingo. She drinks Dominican coffee, listens to Spanish radio, watches telenovelas, and generally recalls elements of Dominican society. Due to this, Lola sees her as a representation of the culture that both draws harm from others and harms itself through its tendencies to hold women to gender roles and perpetuate abuse.

Diaz’s representation of the intersectional prejudice Lola faces isn’t without hope; Lola’s mother, aunt, and grandmother are her mainstays. Despite their flaws—or outright antagonism, as is Belicia’s case for most of the story—they uphold the family. Lola is aware of her mother’s strength, even if it confines and angers her:

I’d seen her slap grown men, push white police officers onto their asses, curse a whole group of bochin-cheras. She had raised me and my brother by herself, she had worked three jobs until she could buy this house (Paragraph 20).

Belicia’s defiance against men, white people, and Puerto Ricans indicates that she, too, feels their prejudice and fights against it. Additionally, she still dedicates herself to maintaining her household and supporting her kids in the way she feels is normal. Including these positive or respectable details calls into question the one-sided way in which Lola otherwise presents her mother. Her tia, or aunt, Rubelka later tells Lola that her mother was beaten, burned, and left for dead back in the Dominican Republic. Ultimately, Lola finds solace with her grandmother, back in the culture she hails from but homed with a woman who respects her. There, she is able to acknowledge the multifaceted struggle her mother dealt with and realize how it impacted herself as well.